I believe that part of the message of Holy Week is, as Corrie ten Boom put it, “There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still.” Jesus identifies with all our struggles because he has been there before us and triumphed through them and over them. I believe we can discover Jesus in our struggles right now, whatever they may be, and he can help us through them.
“But what does this have to do with Palm Sunday?” you may ask. Wasn’t Palm Sunday a day of triumph for Jesus? Yes, to all outward appearances Jesus made a triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Perhaps multitudes were singing his praises. But as Luke records for us, Jesus wept amidst the shouting. He wept because he knew judgment was coming on the city. He wept because his people did not recognize the time of God’s coming to them. (See Luke 19:41-44.)
So, Jesus identifies with our struggles… in relationships, with betrayal, when facing death, and even in success. What struggles are there in success? To discover the answer let’s read together from Matthew’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem from Matthew 21:1-11. Listen for God’s word to you…
As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples,
saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me.
If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”
This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
“Say to the Daughter of Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”
The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them.
They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them.
A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest!”
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”
The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
The first thing I see here is that Jesus identifies with the struggle of manipulation. Others wanted to manipulate Jesus and use him for their own ends. When one is successful in any endeavor one can never be sure thereafter whether people are lauding you because they truly love you or because they want something from you. Jesus experienced this…
Here he was, entering Jerusalem, just before one of the highest and holiest of Jewish feasts—the Passover. Estimates are that there may have been as many as two million Jewish pilgrims who had converged upon Jerusalem at this time. Putting together the various gospel accounts of this event, we learn that Jesus’ disciples from Galilee were in the crowd, and there were others who had gathered for Passover, including those who had seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead. (See John 11.) In addition, there were a number of religious leaders, like the Pharisees.
And what was the crowd shouting? “Hosanna” was the cry, which means “save now!” But the question is, “Save from what?”
I believe there is strong evidence to suggest that the crowd wanted Jesus to be a conquering Messiah who would save them from Rome. They did not want to be saved from their sin. They wanted a political rescue, not a spiritual one.
We need to understand the meaning of the palm branches spread on the road. A couple hundred years before Jesus came on the scene, the Jews spread palm branches on the road for Judas Maccabaeus as he entered Jerusalem after one of his most notable victories. Judas had saved his people from the political power of the Seleucid ruler Antiochus Epiphanes.
So, I think we can say that the crowd in Jesus’ day was trying to manipulate him. They wanted to use Jesus for their own ends, to kick the Romans out of their land. But Jesus was not going to be manipulated. His power and his purpose were not up for sale.
Have you ever faced the struggle of manipulation? Children often try to manipulate their parents. Students do it with teachers. Employees do it with employers. The list could go on and on. We have probably all been manipulated at some time, or we have been the manipulators.
If Jesus had given into the manipulation of the crowd then he would have missed his heavenly Father’s purpose. He might have become a political leader, but he would have missed his spiritual calling—which was to die for sinners like you and me.
I wonder—have you ever tried to manipulate God?
A small boy was writing a letter to God about Christmas presents he wanted. “I’ve been good for sixmonths now,” he wrote.
But after a moment’s reflection he crossed out “six months” and wrote “three”. After a pause, that too was crossed out, and he put “two weeks”. There was another pause and then he crossed out “two weeks”.
The boy got up from the table and went over to the little nativity scene that had the figurines of Mary and Joseph. He picked up the figure of Mary and went back to his writing and started again, “Dear God, if you ever want to see your mother again…”
Sometimes we try to twist God’s arm into giving us what we want, don’t we? I had a friend tell me a lie once to get something he wanted from me. When I found out the lie, I said, “Why did you lie when you ought to know I would have given you what you wanted anyway?”
Sometimes we treat God the same way. We treat him like a cosmic killjoy who we have to convince to be nice to us. But God isn’t like that. He loves us so much that he became one of us and died on a cross for us. We don’t have to manipulate him because he already wants to give us the best. He already wants to meet our every need.
The second struggle Jesus faced during Holy Week was the mercurialness of the crowd. The word “mercurial” comes from the word “mercury” which is, as you know, a metallic substance. Mercurial means “characterized by rapid and unpredictable changeableness of mood.” The crowd that praised Jesus on Palm Sunday was mercurial; by the end of the week, they were calling for him to be crucified.
Perhaps none of us have had peope turn on us as quickly or as violently as Jesus had his countrymen turn on him. But when one has known both success and failure, one does discover that people are fickle. As the song says, “You may be riding high in April, shot down in May.”
Oliver Cromwell, who replaced King Charles I as Lord Protector after the English Civil War, once said to a friend, “Do not trust to the cheering, for those persons would shout as much if you and I were goin to be hanged.” Cromwell understood the mercurialness of the crowd. He was later executed just as King Charles I had been.
Have you ever had people turn on you? Maybe you were up for a promotion at work when your best friend suddenly took the job right out from under you. You felt betrayed. The change came so quickly, and you just weren’t ready for it. Jesus understands what that is like. Jesus had it happen to him in a far more devastating way than any of us will ever experience.
I remember having someone say to me during my first year as pastor of another church many years ago, “We’re behind you. We’re committed. We’ll be at this church as long as you are here.” They left the church in a matter of weeks after making that statement.
We can all be fickle at times. Long-term commitment comes hard for most of us. And so we all too easily hurt one another when we are not faithful to our commitments.
Jesus knew what it was like to deal with the fickleness of people but he didn’t let it deter him from his course. No matter what other people did, he pursued his heavenly Father’s mission.
Jesus can help us deal with mercurial human nature. He identifies with our struggle and will help us through it. And isn’t it great to know that Jesus never changes. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, as it says in the book of Hebrews. He doesn’t change with the shifting shadows. Great is his faithfulness!
In the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool there is a painting entitled, “Faithful Unto Death”. The painting captures the scene where a Roman guard stands on duty while the palace is falling into ruins during the destruction of Herculaneum. The dead are lying in the background, others are falling to the pavement amid the red hot eruptions of Mount Vesuvius. Everyone who can is fleeing for their lives. The Roman guard might have made his escape, but there he stands like a marble statue, preferring to remain at his post, faithful unto death.
Jesus is like that Roman guard. If we have come to him in faith and given him control of our lives, he will remain faithful to us unto death and beyond. Even though we may be fickle. He will not. As it says in 2 Timothy 2:13, “…if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.”
The third thing I think Jesus must have struggled with on Palm Sunday was misunderstanding. When the crowd was asked, “Who is this?” they responded, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
Now, it was good that the crowd recognized Jesus was a prophet. And they recognized him as the prophet. Perhaps they were thinking of what the Lord said to the Israelites centuries before about sending a prophet like Moses to guide his people. Some of the Jews recognized Jesus as this prophet.
Perhaps the crowd even recognized Jesus as a king. Here he was coming into Jerusalem on a donkey which was a royal mount. This is the way that Jewish kings of old would enter the city if they came in peace. Perhaps that is why the crowd hailed Jesus as “Son of David”.
But the people did not recognize Jesus’ priesthood. Jesus is not only the great prophet and the great king, he is also our great high priest. As he rode into Jerusalem he knew that he was about to offer his life as a sacrifice for the sin of his people. But the people did not recognize this.
Furthermore, the people did not seem to recognize that Jesus was claiming to be and do what only Yahweh claimed to be an do in the Hebrew Scriptures. Remember what Jesus said as he rode into Jerusalem? He said that the city would be judged because they did not recognize the time of God’s coming to them. This statement was just one more of Jesus’ many claims to divinity that he made in word and deed.
Jesus knew what it was to struggle with being misunderstood by those who ought to have known better. His own people did not recognize him. They praised him, yes. But their praise was inadequate.
Misunderstandings come about so easily between people don’t they? There was a traveler who was between flights at an airport. She went to a lounge and bought a small package of cookies. Then she sat down and began reading a newspaper. Gradually, she became aware of a rustling noise. From behind her paper she looked and was flabbergasted to see a neatly dressed man helping himself to her cookies. Not wanting to make a scene, she leaned over and took a cookie for herself.
A minute or two passed, and then came more rustling. The man was helping himself to another one of her cookies! By this time, they had come to the end of the package, but she was so angry she didn’t dare allow herself to say anything. Then, as if to add insult to injury, the man broke the remaining cookie in two, pushed half across to her, and he at the other half… and left!
Still fuming sometime later when her flight was announced, the woman opened her handbag to get her ticket. To her shock and embarrassment, there she found her pack of unopened cookies!
Misunderstandings like that happen all the time. And after the fact, we can even find them humorous. But there are deeper misunderstandings, ones that wound us in very tender spots. Perhaps you have tried to do a good deed for someone else, only to have your motives questioned. That kind of misunderstanding can really hurt. But none of us have been misunderstood to the extent that Jesus was. Here he was the Son of God come to save us from our sin, and some people said that he was demon-possessed. And at this high point of his ministry, his triumphal entry, even now people misunderstand him.
If you have ever been hurt by misunderstanding, Jesus gets it. He gets you. He knows what you have been through or are going through. You can find him in your struggle and he will help you through it.
A man found a cocoon of an emperor moth and took it home to watch it emerge. One day a small opening appeared, and for several hours the moth struggled but couldn’t seem to force its body past a certain point.
Deciding something was wrong, the man took scissors and snipped the remaining bit of cocoon. The moth emerged easily, its body large and swollen, the wings small and shriveled.
The man expected that in a few hours the wings would spread out in their natural beauty, but they did not. Instead of developing into a creature free to fly, the moth spent its life dragging around a swollen body and shriveled wings.
The constricting cocoon and the struggle necessary to pass through the tiny opening are God’s way of forcing fluid from the body into the wings. The “merciful” snip was, in reality, cruel. Sometimes the struggle is exactly what we need.
You may be in a place right now where you are struggling, hurting, wounded. And you are wondering, “Why doesn’t God just put all this to an end? What is the purpose of my suffering?”
His purpose is to give you wings. If you could see the big picture right now, you would know that there is not other way for God to give you wings than through the struggle.
Jesus has been through even worse than you are going through right now. He endured the pain of the cross so you and I can be set free. He conquered sin and death and now lives to give us wings if we will just trust him and receive his gift.
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